by Francisco Guevara

“History is not the past. History is the present. We carry our history with us. To think otherwise is criminal” – James Baldwin

“Redemption can never be final because the gap between the old and the new can never be closed. Writing worth reading is built this way, writing being a continuous confrontation with the past that evoked it. Such is the reflection of the sky in the sea. Such is indigo.” – Michael Taussig

The Long 16th Century is a formulation comprising a 200-year period between 1450 and 1650, which has had a profound philosophical and material influence in the ways we experience the world today. It actually marks a point of no return, instituting the common origins of abuse, domination, and our shared history of extermination. This Modern-World System, also known as Capitalist World Economy (Grosfoguel, 2013), begins with the “Age of Discovery”, which established the urge to possess as a moral compass, a longing of unrestricted access to incommensurable wealth and properties, forging the fantasy of treasures.

Born out of superstition, colonial domination became the successful cultural complex we know as European modernity/rationality, establishing itself as the foundation of dominant knowledge and modern institutions (Clarke, 2006; Descartes, 1996; Grosfoguel, 1997). Under the general maxim of “preservation of property”, modernity/rationality has had the power to amass troves of treasures in the many temples of extermination, where we still admire the fruits of Empire. Carefully guarded, these treasures recenter and weaponize possession, using beauty and aesthetics to disguise, loot, rape, and destroy as the methods constantly used to craft official history. This system with universal ambition has proven to be an impossible race, and a competition against the imperatives of justice, masquerading as a treasure hunt that has allowed extermination to become the only path and ordering principle. The result has been a dominant structure of intolerant knowledge, constantly engaging us in the performance of violence against each other, a social contract in which the preservation of property always has to prevail (Descartes, 1996; Holland, 2012; Bolton, 2010).

“Treasures of Adverse Possession” comprises four thematic series of artworks addressing the larger history and narrative of “treasures” as the objects of secretly stored unlimited wealth. Treasures are the product of looting and destruction, as they become hoarded and sometimes lost in history, adding to the dimensions to its fantastic narratives. From the lost Aztec gold of Moctezuma, the kingdom of “El Dorado”, and the gold and silver from the Spanish galleon Esperanza, to the riches of corsairs such as Amaro Pargo, Francis Drake, and many more from the Golden Age of Piracy, the epic myths of treasures are tied to “Empire” and its history, thus remaining in the collective imaginary as revered and desired possessions. As an element of the narratives of power, the fantasy of treasures feeds the imagination, reinventing places through projection while enacting mobility motivated by desire; however, not all treasures are “real”, and “Empire” as a position of power has produced its own jewels with the ability to reify itself within them.

In fact, the hoarding of property, such as treasures, sustains “Empire”, and oppression is central to it. As an imagined center, “Empire” is constantly laboring to exercise control, situating all embodied experiences through ideology (race, class, gender), becoming the abstraction that profits from everything horrific that continuously happens to everyone and our common histories of death and destruction (Buick, 2021).

“Treasures of Adverse Possession” addresses the materiality and philosophical origins of these ideas, presenting them in precious forms looking back at us, alluring, engaging, and tempting. The artworks include a wide range of media, scale, and techniques. All of them point at the birth of Modernity as a pivotal moment, while also bringing several ethical questions into our present. They are inspired by the fruits of “Empire” and thus based on the visual-material culture produced by the complex processes of extermination and early globalization. Information is also drawn from the art, knowledge and technologies that emerged from the Americas, surviving these processes as they challenged every definition of art, style and taste around the world. For instance, all images have been traced using antique artworks kept in museums, by following old marks and patterns to acknowledge the historical discourses that intersect as they become again cross-cultural translations.

Although the pieces vary in technique, dimension, and style, they thematically intersect questioning the philosophical origins of “universal truth”, by considering its roots in transatlantic banality, provincial superstitions, and magical fantasies of endless unaccountable power, all of which gave origin to the dogma of modernity and the invention of individualism. The aim is to turn “treasure” into a medium of reflection of our own selves, and make the legacy and power of adverse possession visible, to confront our own ways of seeing and valuing. Using treasure as a vehicle also reengages us with familiar ontological scandals, while putting into question modern forms of exercising power in the process of transiting this world and engaging with each other. The artworks here presented, are the culmination of several years of research and production, and organized into four thematic chapters to facilitate the engagement in various ways with profound ethical questions. Analogously, to their historical “ancestors”, several of these artworks have become animated as they have embarked in transatlantic journey, and transited throughout Europe in the process of becoming exhibited in important venues and centers of culture. In a sense, they have followed the path that looting and colonization have traced, also sparking the curiosity of multiple audiences as they have been presented in diverse European cities with a historical significance.